Pippin; A Wandering Flame

CHAPTER VII

FLORA MAY

SOON after this, Pippin took the road, sober at first, walking slowly with bent head, thinking hard; but as the morning got into his blood it began to tingle, his eyes began to shine, and up went his head.

"Green grass!" he said. "That sure was a nice place, and nice folks. Most of 'em, I would say; Old Man Blossom is a mite yaller sure, but some of the others are white enough to make up for him. Mr. and Mis' Bailey, now, I declare! They are as like as – as peas – to Pa and Ma, that I thought up to myself along back. How do, Pa? How be you, Ma? Don't you go back on me! Gee! and think of that young feller goin' back on them two! If I was him – green grass! wouldn't it have been great if I was! I tell you I'd make things hum to that nice place. I'd make them two forget I wasn't their own son, and twins at that. And them old ladies! Why, all they need is a little humorin'. Real friendly they was to me! And Mr. Brand! He is a peach, sure thing! I expect he could do more for me, blind, than I could for him, seein'. But I'd be – call it a nevy – to him, if I had the chance. And that poor sweet pretty creatur, if I wouldn't be a brother to her, send me back over There and put me in solitary! Try and learn her little things, try and make her eyes look a mite different. Not but they've tried, them good folks, but bein' nearer her age, and she taken with my singin' and like that – why, an angel wouldn't be no handsomer than what she would be if she had her mind. Take and learn her – "

Pippin stopped dead. Something was rustling in the bushes. The dream light faded from his face; he stiffened to attention like a pointer, his eyes fixed on the fringe of woods on his left. Something in there! A critter, or – ?

The rustling grew nearer, louder; the bushes crackled, parted; a figure came out, timidly, eagerly, ran forward, fell down before him, seized his hand and looked up with dumb, imploring eyes. Flora May!

There are two men in every one of us. I used to think there were ten in Pippin, but for one instant all ten were paralyzed, looking helplessly into the blue eyes that burned into his; then one of them woke, the one who would have been a physician if Pippin had been reared in a home instead of a cellar.

He took the girl's wrists, and, holding them firmly, raised her to her feet.

"Why, Miss Flora May!" he said cheerfully. "Don't ever tell me this is you! Did you come all this way just to say good-by? Now, if that wasn't pretty of you! I'm just as much obliged as I can be, young lady; and I'll walk back a piece with you, I will so. This wood lot is a mite lonely, 'pears to me."

The girl tried to fling herself down again, but he held her tight. "I wouldn't do that!" His voice was kind, but he spoke with authority. "Get your nice clean dress all dirty! What would Mis' Bailey say? Why, she'll be lookin' for you, I expect. She thought you was 'tendin' to the hens, and all the time – what say?"

"Take me with you!" cried the girl. "I want you! I won't go back. Take me with you!"

"Now what a way that is to talk! You wouldn't leave Mr. and Mis' Bailey, good and kind as they be – "

"I want you!" wailed the girl, and again she would have flung herself down, had not those firm hands held her fast. "Take me with you! Sing to me! Love me! I belong to you!"

Pippin's face had been full of perplexity, but now it lightened.

"Sing to you! Why, sure I will! There's a song you'll just admire to hear, Miss Flora May. We'll walk along and I'll sing as we go. No, I won't let go both your hands; I'll hold this one so – so we can keep step together. Now let's step out lively!"

The girl drew back, her eyes narrowing.

"This isn't the way you were going!" she said sullenly. "I won't go back. I'm a big girl, and they treat me like I was a kid. I won't go back! If you won't take me, I'll drown myself!"

"We'll go along! 'Along' isn't 'back,' is it now? Along, you know: matches up with song, don't you see? Green grass! see those pretty yaller flowers! They're along, too, just a piece! Let's we gather some, see if they're sweet as they are pretty!"

Still holding her wrist in that firm grasp, rambling on about the flowers, he stooped to pluck them, and managed to turn back in the direction of Cyrus.

"Now we'll come along!" he proclaimed. "Here's a good clear stretch of road, and I'll sing – you just listen!"

Never before, it seemed to Pippin, had he let his voice out to its full power. He felt it fly like a bird before him; it must reach all the way, it must!

("He'll hear that sure! he'll sense it in a minute, and know it's all right!")

"So we will, Miss Flora May, won't we? You sing, too, that's a dandy girl! Let her go, Gallagher!"

Two hundred yards away, a man was driving through the woods at top speed of his lumbering horse. Brows bent, lips compressed, deadly fear at his heart, he sat unseeing, silent, save when he urged the clumsy beast to still further effort. Fear at his heart, and anger, and bewilderment; but struggling with all these something that said dazedly over and over,

"I don't believe it! He wasn't that kind! I don't believe it!"

Suddenly he checked the horse and threw up his head, listening. Through the trees, down the wood road, a voice came flying like a bird, ringing like a trumpet, crying like a great wind in his ears:

"Lord, forgive me!" cried Jacob Bailey. "Lord, have mercy on me, and never let him know!"

A glint of blue among the trees, the jingle of a little bell that hung beside the wheel; next moment they came in sight, Pippin first, chin in air, mouth open, singing as a bird sings, with every fibre of his being; the girl hanging back a little, held close by that strong hand, but singing, too, in a sweet, broken voice.

"Why, if here isn't our Mr. Bailey, this minute of time!" cried Pippin. "Why – why, Miss Flora May, he's cryin'! Mr. Bailey, you sick, sir? Miss Flora May, you climb right in the wagon, and comfort him up pretty!"

"That was a close call!"

Pippin stood rubbing his head with his file, gazing after the retreating wagon. His cheek had blanched under the tan, and his breath came quick and short. Pippin had been frightened, a thing that had hardly happened since the days when fear was his yokefellow, day and night.

"That," he repeated, "was a close call, as close as I want in mine. S'pose I'd got further off, so's he couldn't catch me up. What would he ha' thought? Poor innocent gal! Gee! The Lord stood by me good that time! But – gorry! S'pose I'd ben – Gives me the cold shivers to think of it. Now – now – I wonder – "

Pippin stood fingering his file absently, deep in thought. How to help a person like that? He had wanted to help her, sure thing, and now – 'peared like all he had done was to hender. He expected 'twas his being a new person, breakin' in, like that, when she was used to havin' things quiet and all of a piece, so to say. He sighed, and replaced the file. Best leave it, after all, to them dandy folks; they was used to handlin' her and they knowed how. Best he keep away, till he had found the little gal, what say? Yes – but – now a doctor might know things that even Mr. and Mrs. Bailey wouldn't. Then he laughed, in spite of his trouble.

Now! How come he to think of that just now, of all times? Along back – way along back – they'd say White Patter over a person that was like that, not to say crazy, but a little wantin'. Old White Patter! They would, sure! Kind of an old charm; couldn't call it a prayer, but mebbe as nigh one as Granny Faa could manage to come. Pippin had tried to say it late times, but he couldn't seem to fetch it: now – now —

He lifted his head; it was coming back, the age-long jargon. Word by word, dropping into his mind from some limbo of things forgotten; word by word, he said it over aloud, standing in the wood road, the trees arching over his head, the moss curling round his feet.

Back in the cellar! Darkness, foul air, fumes of liquor. Some one singing in drunken tones snatches of song vile as the liquor. The child, on his huddle of rags in the corner, shrinks and shudders, he knows not why. The old woman rises; there is a cuff, a curse, a maudlin whimper; she makes her way to the corner and bends over the child. "When he gets singin'," she whispers, "don't 'ee listen, Pippin! Stop your ears and say White Patter! Hark now, till I larn it 'ee!"

Bending lower, she recites the charm over and over, till the child with faltering lips can say it after her. "That'll keep 'ee safe!" says Granny Faa, and hobbles back to the spark of fire that keeps her old bones alive.

"'Twas all the prayer she knew!" said Pippin. "Green grass! But yet I expect the Lord understood. There's Amen to it, you see."

Joy of the road on a June morning! Who could taste it as Pippin did? It stood to reason that no one who had not been behind the bars could really know what it meant. Blue sky overhead – not a little square patch, but all you wanted, all there was – clear, deep, stainless, from rim to rim of the horizon. That would be enough just itself, wouldn't it, after three years of gray-white walls? But there was all the rest beside; trees still in their young, exquisite green, birds not in cages but flitting from branch to branch, singing, singing —

Flowers along the road: buttercups, Pippin's own flower that the Lord gave him that day; daisies, too; beautiful, wicked orange hawkweed, and good honest dandelions, each one a broad gold piece of Summer's coinage. Grass, too – gorry! 'twas in There ("There" was Shoreham) he got the habit of saying "Green grass!" It did him good just to think of it, and it filled the mouth full as good as swearin', for all he could see. He used to think about it; used to wonder, on breathless days when the gray-white walls radiated heat – and other things than heat – how it would feel to lie down and roll in grass, cool, moist, fragrant.

Ah! and now here it was under his feet, an elastic, emerald carpet. All he wanted of that, too! Were ever such uncountable riches as Pippin's this June morning?

He was to have yet more, Croesus that he was. On the left of the road a glint of rosy purple showed against the black tree trunks. He stepped aside and parted the branches. A little ferny hollow, with a tiny stream babbling through: beside the stream masses of purple blossoms, delicate, glowing, exquisite.

"Green grass!" said Pippin. He stood for some time gazing; asking no questions of Rhodora, being no critic, but taking his fill of delight in simple thankfulness. "Gee!" he murmured, as he let the branches droop again over the enchanted place. "And that's right here, by the side of the road, a reg'lar flower show, and no charge for admission. Now what do you think of that for a world to live in? I tell you, Paradise has got to toe the mark to get ahead of that. What say?"

The trees grew thinner, fell away to a fringe; the road grew broader and more even. Presently a house or two came in sight. Yes, this was the Kingdom road; he remembered that white house. He would be back in time for dinner; then he'd put in two three days – or a week, mebbe – finding that boy, and finding – yes, he sure would – the grace of God in him. Take a boy like that, and he could be no more than egged over with sin, like you do coffee cake: it hadn't had time to grime into him. And – come to get him all clean and nice and steppin' the Lord's way again, what was to hender his steppin' right into his, Pippin's, shoes and bein' handy man to Mr. Baxter? Green grass! Pippin had planned lays before now, but he never planned a prettier one than what this would be if it worked out good – and it would! And then it was the city, and to find that little gal. He had never meant to go back to the city, chaplain had told him not to; but if he knew how things was, he would say go, he sure would, Elder Hadley would. Yes, sir! And when he found her – well! After all, the Old Man was her father, and he wouldn't be lasting long anyhow, and if she was a good gal she wouldn't grudge him a portion of time. Mebbe even she'd be fond of him: you never could tell what a woman wouldn't be fond of. Why, Sheeny's wife was fond of him. Used to come over There once a month reg'lar and cry over him 'cause he was in for a long jolt; now you'd thought, knowin' Sheeny, she'd cry if he wasn't. And, gee! there was the meetin'-house, and if Pippin wasn't holler for his dinner, believe him!

CHAPTER VIII

PIPPIN SETS BREAD AND LAYS A PLAN

THE Baxters received Pippin with open arms. 'Peared like he had been away a week, they said, instead of just over night. They certainly had missed him. No, they hadn't set the dough yet: they were just thinking of it, but they thought likely – well, hadn't he better have his supper first? No such great hurry, though of course 'twas about time —

"Gimme five minutes," said Pippin, "and then just watch me!"

In five minutes, washed and brushed, spotless in white cap and apron, his arms bare to the shoulder, he appeared shouting for his task.

Everything was white in the bakery; shining white of tiles and vessels, soft white of scoured pine, softer white of snowy flour. The great caldron stood ready, under the chute that led from the upper floor. Pippin pressed a knob, and down came the flour, in a steady stream. Pretty, Pippin thought, to watch it piling up in a soft cone, falling away in tiny avalanches, piling up again.

Another touch; the stream is checked. Now for the salt and sugar. Now yeast, milk and water, half and half: more whiteness, brimming in a white pail. In it goes, with wonderful effects of bubbling and creaming, while snowy clouds float up and settle on Pippin's brown face and sinewy arms.

He touches another knob; down comes the iron dasher – this, too, shining in white enamel – and round and round it goes, tossing, dropping, gathering, tossing again, steadily, patiently; that is the way they mix bread at Baxter's bakery.

Pippin watches it, fascinated; he never tires of the wonder of it. But presently Mrs. Baxter calls. "Supper, Pippin, come now! Buster'll mind Elbert for you."

Elbert is the dasher, named for the brother baker who persuaded Father Baxter to give up hand mixing and take to machinery. Pippin gives the machine a friendly pat. "Good old Elbert!" he says. "Keep it up, old figger-head! I'll be back, time you're ready to lay off. She's all right, Buster," as the boy enters, munching his final doughnut. "In great shape, Elbert is! You want to scrape her down a mite – " give it twenty masculine names, and a machine must still be feminine – "when she gets balled up, that's all. She's just as sensible – why, she can all but talk, this machine can."

"Mourns good and plenty," chuckles Buster, "when she's dry."

"Lots of folks mourn when they're dry! I shall be mournin' myself if I wait any longer for that cup o' coffee your ma's got for me. So long, old sport!"

"You said you'd tell me that story about Mike Cooney and the turkey!"

"Sure thing! But I didn't say I'd tell you when your ma was keepin' supper for me. Quit now!"

Seeing he was so late, Mrs. Baxter thought he might as well set right down here at the kitchen table; here was his ham and eggs and coffee, and the pie and doughnuts handy by. She'd been flustrated up all day. Had Pippin heard that there was thieves about? No, Pippin hadn't; he wanted to know if there was! Well, 'twas so. Mis' Wilkins had two pies stole last night right off the butt'ry shelf, and a jug of cider, and matches all over the floor; and night before that they broke into Al Tibbetts's store, broke open the till and made away with two dollars and seventy-five cents. There! She was so nervous she thought she should fly. Did Pippin think the lock was real safe on the bakery door?

Pippin, after reassuring her on this point, grew thoughtful over his supper, so thoughtful that he was reproached for not eating a thing. He roused himself.

"Not eatin'! Just you watch me, Mis' Baxter! Know what ailed the man that wouldn't eat a supper like this? Well, he was dead, that was what troubled him!"

The table cleared, Pippin washed his hands and arms at the sink, and joined Mr. and Mrs. Baxter on the back porch. Soon two pipes were puffing, and three rocking chairs (Buster had unwillingly gone bedward) creaked and whined comfortably. It was a soft, dark night, just cool enough for comfort, Pippin thought, and yet warm enough – well, warm enough for comfort, too. The back porch looked out on a little gully, the bed of a stream that flowed through Kingdom to join the river near at hand. White birches grew on the steep banks – you could see them glimmering through the dark – and the place was full of fireflies; the stream murmured drowsily over its pebbles.

"Green grass!" murmured Pippin. "Now wouldn't it give you a pain to think of leavin' this?"

They were three tired people – Mrs. Baxter had done a big ironing, and the baker had missed Pippin sorely – and for some time were content to sit silent, rocking softly, breathing tranquilly, "just letting go," as Mrs. Baxter put it. But after a half-hour of this pleasant peace, Pippin sighed, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and sat up straight in his chair.

"Now, folks," he said, "I've got to talk."

Mrs. Baxter woke out of a comfortable doze; Mr. Baxter straightened himself and knocked out his own ashes. "That's right!" he said. "We'll be pleased to hear you, Pippin. I heard you tellin' Buster, and it sounded real interestin'. Fire away!"

"Well!" said Pippin ruefully. "I'm in hopes you won't be any too well pleased, Father Baxter. The heft of what I have to say is in four words: I got to leave!"

The rocking chairs creaked with startled emphasis.

"You ain't, Pippin!"

"You don't mean it, Pippin!"

"You're jokin'! He's jokin', mother, can't you see?"

"I wish't I was!" sighed Pippin. "I tell you, Mr. and Mrs., I don't want to leave, no way, shape, or manner; but yet I got to. Lemme tell you, and you'll see for yourselves. First place, I got to tell Mis' Baxter about before I come here. Yes, Boss, I just plain got to! I meant all along to tell her before I left, but I've kind of put it off – the further I get from that feller I used to be, the worse I hate him! Well!"

Slowly and carefully Pippin rehearsed the familiar story, hiding nothing, glossing nothing over, giving what glory there was to the Lord and Elder Hadley. When he finished this part, the baker was holding one of his hands, his wife the other, both uttering exclamations of pity, sympathy, encouragement.

That wouldn't make no difference, the good people assured him, not the least mite. "Why, he told me the very first day, mother! I didn't want to make you nervous, so I kep' it to myself. It don't cut no ice with us, Pippin, not a – "

Pippin checked them gently; that was only the first chapter. He went on to tell of his visit to Cyrus Poor Farm (omitting only the episode of Flora May), and of his promises to Old Man Blossom and to Jacob Bailey.

"Now you see, you nice folks – you nicest kind of folks – here I be! I love bakin' – if I was to work within four walls there's nothin' else I'd choose so soon – but it isn't so intended; I make sure of that. Here I be, promised to the Old Man to find his little gal if she's to be found (and that means if she's alive), and promised to Mr. Bailey to get hold of that boy and give him a boost. You see how 'tis, don't you? Well, of course! I knew you would! Well, now I was studyin' this out all the way home, and the Lord took hold and showed me His idea, and I think 'twill work out real good, if we have luck. I say 'we,' because you folks have got to help."

"For pity's sake, Pippin!"

"Yes, Mis' Baxter, for pity's sake! That's the stuff. And that boy's sake. Suppose it was Buster! This is a good boy, mind you, only weak. Suppose it was Buster! Look at here! This is the way I've worked it out. Mr. Bailey is a dandy man, and Mis' Bailey ekally so woman, but they made a big mistake. What did that boy need? He needed other boys, and there wasn't none round, so happened. There was old folks, and blind folks, and wantin' folks, some good as gold and others – well, the reverse! He didn't want none of 'em; he wanted a pal! Well! He got one, and he got a crook. That was his streak of bad luck, see? And he's in it still. Way I look at it, we got to haul him out, ain't it?"

"I'll do my part, Pippin!" said Mrs. Baxter promptly.

"Count me in!" said the baker. "I don't know what I can do, 'less it's knead the youngster up in a batch of dough and bake him to keep him out of mischief, but count me in!"

"Well!" said Pippin. He leaned forward, a hand on the knee of either. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Now – "

He paused abruptly. Something was moving in the gully beneath them. With a swift gesture of caution, he stole noiselessly to the railing of the porch and looked down. All was soft darkness, save where the birches glimmered dusky white, where the fireflies danced and shone. The stream droned on; the night clung closer. Look! Was that a blacker shadow there, just where the old willow overhung the stream? Was it a shadow that moved, followed by a second stealthy shade? A twig snapped; a branch rustled. Hark! Was that a whisper, a footstep? The fireflies rose in a wild whirl, scattered, came together, resumed their rhythmic dance, filling the little glen with golden sparks. Silence fell like a mantle.

CHAPTER IX

PIPPIN ENCOUNTERS THE RED RUFFIAN

THE days that followed Pippin's disclosure of his plan were troublous ones for Mrs. Baxter. She looked under the bed a dozen times a day; she avoided the broom closet for fear of what might lurk there; if a door resisted her opening, she made sure it was held on the other side. For the first time, terror entered her life. It had been a comfortable life: she had been a good and cheerful baby, child, maiden; she was a good and cheerful woman. She had known that this was a wicked world, and – in a general way – that there were bad people even in Kingdom. They never entered the bakery, but tales of them were whispered over the counter during the tying up of buns and coffee cakes. And we were all miserable sinners, of course, especially on Sunday. But now she was living in a tale! Their own Pippin, Pippin of the bright eyes, the winning smile, the pleasant, helpful ways – Pippin had been one of the wicked. And now there were more of them about, walking Kingdom streets, perhaps – she shuddered – looking in the window the moment while her back was turned; and she was to be called upon to help save one of them.

"But I've had no experience!" she would say piteously. "I don't know how to talk to them kind of persons, Pippin. I've had no experience!"

"Well, you're goin' to have!" Pippin told her cheerily. "Woman dear, crooks is just folks, same as other folks; they ain't painted black, outside or in. You know how to talk to me well enough, don't you?"

"Oh, Pippin!"

"Well, then! Just bear in mind that what this boy is, I was, only about a thousand times wuss. Why, he's nothin' but a boy! Say to yourself, 'S'pose it was Buster!' Say it over and over till it comes easy as breathin'!"

"Yes, Pippin!" said Susan Baxter.

As for Pippin himself, the days were not long enough for him. He was making the most of his last week of baking. Hitherto he had kept strictly to bread, rolls and doughnuts; but now he essayed loftier flights, wrestled with coffee cake, overcame; made his first batch of pies and glowed with pride to hear them pronounced A No. 1. Between work hours he ranged the town with his wheel, and at every corner people gathered round him, ostensibly to have their knives sharpened, though by this time there was hardly a dull knife in Kingdom – really to watch Pippin at work and hear him sing. He scanned every group with eager eyes, but saw no strange faces, only the kindly Kingdom Comers, as he called them, who were all his friends. After dark, leaving his wheel at home, he might drop in on Father O'Brien or Elder Stebbins for an hour's chat, and hear what was going on in the two parishes, to both of which he considered himself to belong.